Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

Torah Study with Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis, March 30, 2013

Excerpt taken from a sermon by Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis, given March 30, 2013.

VIDEO: Rosh Hashanah 2013/5774 sermon from Rabbi Schulweis

"All in the Family: Bridging the Secular and Religious in Judaism"-part 1

Rosh Hashanah 2013/5774 with Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis

"All in the Family: Bridging the Secular and Religious in Judaism"-part 2

Kol Nidre-Yom Kippur 2013/5774 with...Read more...

Shavuot - Yizkor

by Harold M. Schulweis

The holiday of Shavuot is dedicated to revelation. Revelation implies that something is concealed. The human thirst and hunger for revelation is pervasive.

Somehow we sense that there is something more beneath the surface of things. The world is not what it appears to be. There is something deeper, hidden beneath the appearances of the world.

The world is too flat. Is...Read more...

The rabbis in the Talmudic era declared that two bachelors are permitted to sleep beneath the same blanket because Jews are not suspect of homosexuality (Kiddushin 82a). Were the rabbis treating homosexuality in the first centuries the way we once dealt with drug addiction, alcoholism, wife abuse, declaring, "This is not a Jewish problem"?

We can pretend that it is not a Jewish concern, though a number of scholars have speculated that...Read more...

INTRODUCTION

Every civilization has its myths, stories, narratives and legends. They search for meaning and significance. What is real, not ephemeral but enduring?

In modernity, myths are recognized sources of truth. This explains the popularity of James Campbell, and of the renewed interest in the anthropology of Malinowski, Levi Strauss, Carl Yung, Martin Buber and Sigmund Freud.

Freud put is...Read more...

There are no statues of Moses from his own time, but we have statues by Michelangelo and another one by Salvador Dali. We don't know how Moses looked or how he sounded. But Hollywood cast Charlton Heston as Moses, and Heston has a deep and commanding voice. But Moses, from what we know from the Bible stories, was a stammerer, a stutterer, a heavy tongue. It may not do for Hollywood to have a hero as a stammerer. But it is brilliantly Jewish....Read more...

Yizkor means "He will remember.” The prayers appeal to God's memory. God is He who remembers. "Lord what is man that You should notice him? What is mortal man that You should consider him?"

The prayers express anxiety lest we leave this world without having cast a shadow on the earth. The terror of death is to discover at the end of our lives that we have not lived. Not to have lived is the unspoken dread of dying. Not to be...Read more...

In one of the strangest passages in the book of Ecclesiastes, the book of Gehelet in the Bible we are told "Better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. Do not be hasty to the spirit of anger for anger rests in the hearts of fools." It is important to mourn in truth because the name of God is truth. The prayer we recite before we rent the kriah ends with the word "emet". The name of the cemetery in Hebrew is bet emet,...Read more...

Selichot, 2003 by Harold M. Schulweis

The Kotzker Rebbe, a most enigmatic and troubled tzaddik, spent the last twenty years of his life depressed and in seclusion. Once, when visited by his friend and greeted with, "Peace be with you, Rabbi," the Kotzker Rebbe responded by saying, "Don't you recognize me?" I am the "sacred goat."

Why a sacred goat? The Kotzker told the tale: "Once an old Jew lost his snuff box made of the horn...Read more...

Yom Kippur, 2003 by Harold M. Schulweis

We are gods to our children. We have given birth to them. They are helpless and dependent upon us. We are their gods: omnipotent, all-powerful, omniscient, all wise, ubiquitous, all present. Our children are created in our image. We shape our children.

And who shapes us? What drives us? Who teaches us right from wrong? Who tells us for Yom Kippur what is sin and what is...Read more...

Most people don't pray, not in the synagogue, not at home, not on the golf course, except for a divine expletive or in response to a sneeze – "gesundheit." God bless you.

The reasons that are normally given are not real. "I don't know Hebrew."

(Then read in English.)

Most people don't pray because for them prayer doesn't work. Prayer has no cash value. Ours is a pragmatic society, a utilitarian culture. Things have...Read more...

What do I know about Italy and Italians?

As a child, I was raised in the Bronx, in an Italian neighborhood where all the kids played stick ball and stoop ball. We had a lot more in common than stick ball. Our families were very much alike. My immigrant parents from Poland exchanged Borscht for Spaghetti with our immigrant Italian neighbors.

Jews and Italians enjoyed the uninhibited gesticulation of their hands and a great love...Read more...

I sit with open-mouthed incredulity before the television programs featuring "psychics.” I watch and listen to people who appear on the growing number of programs featuring persons willing to pay for the wisdom they receive from the psychics and offering testimony to their effectiveness. Earnest people confess that when it comes to important decisions in their lives, be it in the affairs of the heart, the choices of mates, decisions in...Read more...

Shabbat, March 13, 2004

by Harold M. Schulweis

Claire Luce Booth, the wife of the owner of Luce Publications, reported a frank conversation with a Jewish friend. Booth said, "I must admit being positively bored by all this talk of the Holocaust and its constant repetition of Jewish suffering." The Jewish friend replied, "I know just how you feel. I feel exactly the same way about the Crucifixion."

Each would like to...Read more...

Rosh Hashanah 1999

by Harold M. Schulweis

The rabbis selected the Biblical story of the binding of Isaac for study on Rosh Hashanah.

Here is one of the most influential stories in world literature, central to an understanding of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. It is a story that has puzzled not just religious commentators, but secular philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Soren Kierkegaard, and in...Read more...

by Harold M. Schulweis

The question is whispered, and must be answered in a forthright manner: Darfur or Israel? Is your loyalty to your people, or to humanity? Is your loyalty to Judaism, or to mankind? Are you essentially a Jew, or a human being?

Be wary of the framing of the question, because it forces a strangle-hold on us, a hard disjunctive "either-or" choice....Read more...

The critics of Mordecai Kaplan's philosophic efforts were persistent in their accusations of his purported neglect of metaphysics. Of what value is "an account of the psychological and ethical consequences" of affirming a theology without the metaphysical substructure which deals with "things as a whole" and without the belief that there is "something ontological, some affirmation...concerning the ultimate nature of things" ?  A theology...Read more...

Yom Kippur 2009

by Harold M. Schulweis

Looking back over the last year, I must confess to you that I am overwhelmed by the flood of new vocabulary which is unfathomable to me:  Hedge funds, leveraged buying, derivatives, economic meltdown, recession, toxic assets, phantom stocks, banking bailouts, subprime mortgages.”  And you thought  that my sermons were unintelligible?   I’m overwhelmed by this...Read more...

As far as intermarriage is concerned, the surest antidote is anti-Semitism. Anti-Semites don't want anything to do with Jews. They want to keep them our of their neighborhoods, out of their businesses, out of their recreational clubs. Anti-Semites don't want to marry Jews. In an anti-Semitic society, intermarriage and mixed marriage are no serious problems.

In recent polls, 87% of American non-Jews welcome marriage to a Jew. A Jew has...Read more...

I know the Rabbi who normally occupies this pulpit. I listen to him often. Never missed any of his talks. I try to understand him, and it has not always been easy. I wish him and you better luck tonight.

I sense, as I look about Jewish life, a mounting anger in our people. A barely concealed resentment. Anger leaked in public statements of many of our leaders – religious, political, secular, in Israel, at home. There is an "anger,"...Read more...

Yom Kippur 2008 - 5789

by Harold M. Schulweis

You begin Yom HaKippurim not with a prayer. It’s with a statement, a plea for absolution, and with a plea for expiation. You begin, strangely enough, “By the authority of the Heavenly Court, by the authority of this earthly court, with Divine consent, and with the consent of this congregation, we hereby declare it permissible to pray with those who have...Read more...

1993

by Harold M. Schulweis

Jeffrey sees no one but non-Jewish women. When you ask him why he gives a dozen excuses:  "It's just a date.  It means nothing," or , "After all, we Jews are not bigots," or "I'm not the religious type.”

One day Jeff comes to his parents to announce "I've found her.” They ask "What's her name?" He answers "Lucy Cohen.” Their hearts leap with expectation. They ask "How do you...Read more...

by Harold M. Schulweis

I was not born a rabbi. My father was not a rabbi, nor was his father. A rabbi is not a rebbe, someone who inherits the status and mantle of his ancestry. I was born a layman, and as a layman I had felt from the start a certain mystique about the rabbi. Not merely the mystery in that the rabbi was invisible during the week and incomprehensible during...Read more...

The Uniqueness of Judaism - Lecture IV

1998

by Harold M. Schulweis

Following of the death of his son, Absalom, King David arose to rend his garment. When Jacob saw his son Joseph's coat of many colors drenched in blood, he presumed that he was killed and he rent his garment. When David learned of the death of King Saul, he rose and rent his garment. When Job, who knew so much grief and of the death of his children, he...Read more...

The Uniqueness Of Judaism - Lecture II (1998)  

by Harold M. Schulweis

The Sh'ma must be recited so that it is audible to oneself –Lhashmiah ozno.  It is the one verse that must not be slurred but clearly enunciated, especially the last word. I recall my zayde with his hand covering his eyes, elongating the e-c-h-a-d. Echad serves as a magnet drawing together the iron filings of our value system.

Echad is...Read more...

We have to know who we are and we have to know what we believe. We have to believe what we pray and we have to understand what we pray. To begin with, we want to look at a prayer that is recited three times a day and it is found in the Amidah, the central series of benedictions that are recited daily. On page 233, at the bottom of the page, we find the thirteenth benediction. A prayer that the tender mercies of God be stirred toward the...Read more...

Rosh Hashana, 2007

by Harold M. Schulweis

Rabbi Nachman Bratzlav, the renowned 18th Century Hasidic master of stories, called his disciples together and told them a gripping parable:

Once upon a time, a king received a shocking report about the new harvest.  “Whoever eats of this crop will become mad.”   The king then said, “Since there is no other food which is available, we must eat of the harvest,...Read more...

“It ain't necessarily so.
It ain't necessarily so.
The things that you’re liable
To read in the Bible
It ain't necessarily so.”

Sportin' Life's agnostic hymn is followed by the chorus

“Jonah he lived in a whale,
Jonah he lived in a whale.
He made his home in
A fish's abdomen,
Jonah he lived in a whale.”

Sportin' Life's lyric is correct if...Read more...

What has Jewish spirituality to do with Jewish fund raising? Everything. I am a fund raiser for Judaism. I am a fund raiser because there is no division of labor in Jewish life. One cannot espouse spiritual values from the pulpit and refuse to become involved in the material conditions which realize those values. I am a Jewish fund raiser because my knowledge of Judaism tells me that “The body is Thine and the soul is Thine.”  Body...Read more...

Selichot 2002

by Harold M. Schulweis

How do you begin?
With whom do you begin?
With what do you begin?
Where do you begin?
When do you begin?

The first word in the Torah is “beresheith,” beginning. The first word is not “God” or “world” but “beginning.” It led the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidism to declare, “The whole world is for the sake of beginning.” If...Read more...

October 17, 2000

by Harold M. Schulweis

“Jews can't take 'yes' for an answer.” This quip attributed to the Israeli statesman Abba Eban is usually met with a smile of recognition. But what stands in the way of an affirmative acceptance of good news? Why such reluctance bordering on negativity toward the outstretched hand?

I have in mind the reluctant reaction of many Jewish leaders and organizations to the bold...Read more...

The raw datum is dramatic enough. A child is killed every two hours by guns in the United States. Fifty thousand children from 1979 to 1991 were killed by guns, more than all the American soldiers killed in Viet Nam.

We need true wisdom to deal with this tragic phenomenon.

Rosh Hashana 2004

by Harold M. Schulweis

Don't throw away the newspaper! Newspapers are the day-to-day records of history. Judaism has a passion for meaning. Events have meaning. What do events mean? How do changes instruct us? Look around at the world. Every event has something to teach us. As the Zohar instructed: “There is nothing in the world empty of God.”

When the Industrial Revolution took place, it...Read more...

I am myself an aficionado of televangelism. One of my favorite channels features the 700 Club of Pat Robertson. Every rabbi has to have his diversion. Mine is the 700 Club.

Rev. Pat Robertson ran for the Presidency in 1988, a man of considerable influence and tremendous charisma. He invited to the 700 Club the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who was the former head of the Moral Majority, on the program after September 11. They offered a...Read more...

Rosh Hashana, 2000

by Harold M. Schulweis

The Rabbi of Belz, Shalom ben Elazar Rokeach of the 19th century, wrote: There are three types of exile. The first is when Jews are in exile among the nations. The second is when Jews are in exile among Jews. And the third is when a Jew is exiled within himself.

There are Jewish families whose members are in exile; alienated from each other, families whose members do not speak...Read more...

It is long past the denominational caricaturing that depicts the Orthodox as crazy, the Reform as lazy, and the Conservative as hazy. The old stereotypes have been supplanted by a more serious fragmentation that tears at the fabric of Jewish identity, continuity and character.

The most serious challenge to Jewish living does not come from without, from anti-Semitism, the missionary or the cult –  but from within. The threat...Read more...

May, 2004

by Harold M. Schulweis

In a Fifth Century Midrash, Pesikta Derav Kahana, commenting on the first words of the Ten Commandments, I am the Lord thy God, some sages ask, “How is it possible that 600,000 Israelites stood at the foot of Sinai and one Voice addressed an entire people, yet every individual was convinced that the Voice was addressed to him personally?”

To this Rabbi Levy answers, “The Holy One...Read more...

Rosh Hashana 2009, 5770

by Harold M. Schulweis

Today is different. Today we do not greet each other today with “Chag Sameach,” as we do on Passover or Sukkot or Shavuot. Those holidays celebrate Jewish history — the Exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert, the Revelation at Mt. Sinai. On those days our study, our prayer, our thoughts are all focused on the God of history. 

But during the Days of Awe,...Read more...

Yom Kippur, 1995

by Harold M. Schulweis

When last I spoke to my teacher, Abraham Joshua Heschel, he asked if he could borrow my kittel. He was not at home in New York but here in California and it was before the High Holidays. "You know,” he explained "the kittel is part of the tachrichim -- the shrouds in which the dead are clothed for the funeral. You know on Yom Kippur I face my mortality." When, more than on Yom Kippur,...Read more...

Moses did not go gently into the night. When God in wrath against Moses and Aaron vowed "Therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them". Moses did not take it to heart. He decided not to implore God to do away with this sentence because he remembered the precept "Do not attempt to dissolve thy neighbor's vow in the moment that he has made it". So, Moses waited forty years before he approached God with the...Read more...

Yizkor Passover, April 24, 2003

by Harold M. Schulweis

Our parents are living longer and with longevity comes vulnerability in sickness. Increasingly, we are faced with the awesome decisions "to pull or not to pull the plug."

For many families, the pain of such decisions is countered with denial. We will postpone the issue of the preparation for death and moreover, as some have said to me, "I don't want to play God."...Read more...

October 2004

by Harold M. Schulweis

The Reverend Doug Huneke is one of our people's great Christian friends in our time. I do not regard myself as an alarmist. To the contrary, I look for the goodness of humanity and am inspired by the most consequential verse in the Bible, the one that asserts that every single human being, whatever belief, race, ethnicity or gender, is created with a Divine potentiality that reflects the...Read more...

Tishrei 5769 / Rosh Hashana 2008

by Harold M. Schulweis

I’m Harold Schulweis, and I approve of this message.

I make no endorsement, I hold no partisan view. I speak as a Jew addressing the world, offering a “Jewish State of the Union” address on human conditions in our century.

Today, we celebrate the creation of the world and the birth of humanity. How will history remember us, and how will we remember...Read more...

Who is our constituency? Who is out there? Whom are we meant to serve? The late Pinchas Pelli was fond of telling a story about two Lubavitch Hasidim who discussed the nature of the Jewish constituency and its role for the future. One said to the other: "The whole world is divided into 'them' and 'us'. No point talking about 'them.' Let's talk about us. Among us, the Jewish world is divided between Ashkenazim and Sephardim. No point talking...Read more...

Yom Kippur, 1999

by Harold M. Schulweis

We have lived with the generation of survivors during the Shoah, the unspeakable nightmare of the century we are leaving. We are now preparing to enter a new century with a new post-Holocaust generation. We are entering a different world that will require a renewed theology, a different spiritual statesmanship and in a globalized universe a new weltanschauung toward the non-Jewish...Read more...

May 26, 2010

by Harold M. Schulweis

It is right that we should meet here, in the sanctuary. There are dreams here. And visions. And an ancient biblical vision rising from smoke, blood and ashes. 

The Prophet stands alone before an open valley, strewn with mutilated bodies, and the broken shards of the ruined Temple. Suddenly, the Prophet is addressed by an anguished voice: “Son of man, can these bones live?”...Read more...

Philosophy is not autobiography. How a man lives is no way to measure the worth of his philosophy. It is a genetic fallacy to evaluate the value or meaning of an idea by tracing it to its origin. Henry Bergson's interest in intuitionism may have been triggered by the deafness and muteness of his daughter, but his philosophy of intuitionism must be judged on its own merits. That Friedreich Nietzsche died in an insane asylum tells us nothing...Read more...

"One is embarrassed to be called religious in the face of religious failure to keep alive the image of God in the face of man." I recall those words of my teacher, Abraham Joshua Heschel. Who can be proud of religion reading, examining the daily reports of violence between Christians and Muslims and the resulting slaughter of innocents in Bosnia? Mass rape camps are established to humiliate and torture Muslim girls and women. Who can be proud...Read more...

Yom Kippur 2006 – 5767

by Harold M. Schulweis

The sermon started with rumors, anecdotes, whispers — which I dismissed as so much titillating gossip. Then a serious and respected colleague, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the President of the Union of Reform Judaism, addressed the general assembly of his movement with urgency. He appealed to parents and the synagogue to be actively concerned with the growing number of middle-school...Read more...

You are the first Board of Directors of the 21st century. Your decisions will be made in a new world. Your agenda will reflect the revolution of a new age.

A cultural revolution has swept over all of us and affected economics, politics, government, commerce and inevitably religion itself.

The critical term for that revolution is globalization.

Globalization means that we do not live in an insular society. Yesterday's...Read more...

Axel Springer is a German, the owner and publisher of the largest chain of newspapers in post-war Germany, a man with a compelling conscience. He takes his son to Bergen Belsen to place flowers at the grave of Anne Frank, and before they leave he whispers to his son: "Dig the earth with your fingers until you find some bones of human bodies. Take one of these bones with you and place it where you can always see it, where you will never be...Read more...

Yom Kippur, 1996

by Harold M. Schulweis

They are linked together but they are not the same. Rosh Hashanah is not Yom Kippur and Yom Kippur is not Rosh Hashanah. They each speak with different voices, express different attitudes and teach different lessons. Bracketed by the same term, "Days of Awe", Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are not only different but even contradictory.

How does Rosh Hashanah start at home? With...Read more...

You ask what I believe about the afterlife, and I in turn am struck by the fact that yours is a question rarely asked by Jews. It is different with Christian audiences, where inquiries about the Jewish view of life after death are almost invariably the first questions posed. How is it that as a rabbi called upon to officiate at funerals, deliver eulogies, comfort the bereaved, I am rarely questioned about the disposition of the soul after...Read more...

Jennifer asked me an important question in the course of her study of the biblical text which she is chanting. She thought it was unseemly that the Levites appeared to be so privileged, held apart, and elevated as guardians of the Tabernacle. She sensed that here were the inklings of a caste system. And I thank her for formulating the question for my talk.

I need no...Read more...

Herbert Gold, the American novelist, tells of an exchange between Claire Booth Luce, the wife of publisher Henry Luce, and a Jewish friend. “I must tell you, dear, that I find all this talk about the Holocaust to be insufferably boring: Holocaust,...Read more...

What is left to be done after the dying is over?
After the earth has covered the grave
the casket lowered
the ribbon cut
the tears shed
the last kaddish recited
the farewells over
the closure formed?

But there is no final closure in death.
Life and death are locked in embrace,
So intimately intertwined that the "Keriah" of the cloth
cannot tear them...Read more...

How do they leave the funeral?
After the eulogy, after the lowering of the casket
After the earth has been gently dropped upon the grave.

They divide themselves into two rows
to allow the mourners to depart
Then walk slowly towards their cars,
A different gait than before.

A different quietness, a new recognition
of the mortality of their lives
of what is really...Read more...

Envy them
Those who stand bent before the casket
wiping away their tears.
Envy them their memories of
Warm embraces, gentle humour,
birthdays, anniversaries,
joyous meals around the Sabbath
table.

Pity those who cannot cry
whose tears have long been
dried into resignation,
surrendering the promise.

Pity the dried-eyed sadness
of those who can...Read more...

The young child asked
"Where is Grandma?"
the adults gasped
Not knowing what to say

Certainly not in the earth
Buried, covered over with soil and small rocks
Certainly not in the heavens
Distant, far off, a fantasy of the imagination.

Much closer than earth, much closer than heaven
Grandma, dear child, is within us all.
In memories of her kindness and...Read more...

Two names, one God
side by side

Two names
interdependent
Each with its own nature
complementary

Elohim we greet
at the opening chapter of Genesis,
out of chaos and void

Elohim, the ground of all creation,
heavens and earth
the fish below, the birds in the air
Elohim, Source of the universe
lion and lamb
eagle and dove
and...Read more...

Godliness and Immortality by Harold M. Schulweis

Who are "they" to me
I, a child of Jewish Polish parents
Haunting memories filled with
episodes of contempt for my people.

Who are "they" to me?
Stories of ten decapitated Jewish heads placed upon the SS desk
shrunken heads covered upon which skull caps are derisively displayed
"This is your minyan, Jew".

Who are "they" to me
the silent...Read more...

People of power, prestige, and privilege shuffling on the pavement with shackles on their ankles, on their way to house arrest or solitary confinement.   Smart people with high I.Q’s, and high S.A.T. scores, from highly endowed universities. Smart people with multiple degrees, fame and titles: senators, congressmen, governors, candidates for the highest offices of the law, financiers, moguls controlling world-wide media; educated...Read more...

Summer 2008 

He was waiting for me there at the threshold of the synagogue. He took me aside and he said, “The trouble with you, Rabbi, is that you ask too much of us. You set the bar too high. We Jews are not angels, and we ought not to be angels, because angels on earth are incinerated in the crematoria.”

Now, what did I say that gave him such agitation? It was the Sabbath before Passover, and I had told the...Read more...

"Protect my children from my secret wish
to make them over in my image and illusions.
Let them move to the music that they love
dissonant perhaps to me." (Nissim Ezekiel)

We have raised them, sculpted them, schooled them
Exposed them to our ways and our world.
Who can blame our parental conceit
Imposing our dreams on their heads

Give us the...Read more...

You are not today as you were yesterday
Nor are we.
Something has occurred.

We sit with the congregation
You stand alone on the Bimah
You lead the congregation
We follow
You sing, pray, speak
We listen.

You are not an echo of our sand
You have your own words.
The still, small voice of conscience stands alone
Stronger in you...Read more...

You who give counsel to others
must now give counsel to yourself.

You to whom others turn for wisdom
turn to yourself.

You to whom others come for comfort
must comfort yourself.

We Comforters and consolers,
the healers of others
need comfort and consolation
In sickness, in death, in tragedy
we are the same.

May the last hours not eclipse the entire life
May the pain,...Read more...

Child
Touch my nose, my lips, my eyes
with your small hands.
Then touch my arms and chest.
Feel their shape
how real they are.

Now, touch my love.
No, not my chest or arms or lips.
You are puzzled.
How is one to touch love 
and where is its place?

Love is not here or there
But who would
deny its reality?
Where does love reside
if it cannot be pointed to?

Is it...Read more...

December 12, 2007

by Harold M. Schulweis

There are mirrors and there are windows. In our tradition, you may not pray before a mirror. But the House of Prayer must have a window. 

What difference does it make? A mirror is made of glass and a window is made of glass. 

But the poet Ansky suggests "In the mirror the plain glass is covered with a little silver, and as soon as a little silver is added, you...Read more...

Selichot, 1995

by Harold M. Schulweis

The Hasidim tell the story of a deaf man who passes a large window of a house. He looks through the window and sees a circle of people waving their hands and their legs, using odd gestures and fierce motions. He concludes that this must be an asylum of mad people. Because he is deaf he cannot hear the music to which they are dancing. Because he cannot hear the music he cannot know the...Read more...

A cautionary word. The tragic record of intolerance in God's name against those who cannot or will not believe or practice as we do, the documentation of cruelty by those who raise the sacralized word to savage the lives of those who fall outside the circle of our definition, the history of religious beliefs baptized in the threatening waters of absolutism are reasons enough to temper the apodictic declarations of belief. I would gladly...Read more...

We have been blessed by God with the breath of life
breathed in us at creation.
The image of God is not far off but near
in our soul.
As we pray daily
God is
the all good whose mercies never fail us
whose wonders are daily with us, evening, morn and noon.

Let the healing power within you give you
strength, courage, comfort and consolation.

We cannot...Read more...

He asked of me -
Help me mourn.
An odd request from one
so learned,
Who has the mind, the heart, and tears
why does he need my help to mourn?

We spoke a while
and then his request grew clearer
He wanted to mourn
not as if he were unrelated, a stranger
to his people, to his father's people.

He wants to mourn as part of a community
with a...Read more...

August 21, 2006

by Harold M. Schulweis

We are here together not as doves or as hawks, but as eagles. As it is written, “I have borne you upon eagles wings.” Eagles carry their young upon their wings to protect their children from the poisonous arrows which are shot by the archers below.

We are here to protect, we are here to support and sustain our family, threatened with destruction from terrorists, bombers from...Read more...

Shemini Atzeret, 1995

by Harold M. Schulweis

We are not listening to history and we are not listening to the instructions of our tradition. We have heard it said so often but it does not affect our practical lives or our attitudes. The rabbis have told us in the Talmud that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed not for lack of observance of the laws, not because we did not study enough or observe enough, but most importantly...Read more...

The Hebrew word for funeral is "levaish" - which means to escort, to accompany
It draws attention to those who come to the grave
to the family and friends
who do not abandon the deceased.

We who come are witnesses of the goodness and immortal remembrances
of a life lived.
We who come to the "levaish" are Levites,
loyal attendants who serve the mourners,...Read more...

Why do people hate? Why do they kill? Why do they steal? Why do they murder?

The Bible records the first murder, which is fratricide — the killing of one brother of another. And it tells the story in very few words. "And Cain spoke unto Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him."

Here is the first murder mystery. No one was on the scene and...Read more...

I do not believe that sickness is divine
punishment
a malediction thrust down upon me from above
a chastisement meant to correct some
transgression
I do not believe that sickness is some
mysterious test
Strange compensation designed to build character.

Rabbinic sages observed
"olam k'minhago noheg"
nature pursues its own course.
a course independent...Read more...

Yom Kippur, 1993

by Harold M. Schulweis

"By authority of the heavenly Tribunal and of the Court below with divine sanction and with the sanction of this holy congregation, we declare it lawful to pray together with those who have transgressed.”

This opens the revolutionary proclamation that declares the interdependence of heaven and earth, the unity between the law above and the law below, the dignity and power of...Read more...

A few months ago, two prominent advertisements appeared in The New York Times. The first, under the banner "Mazel Tov Newt," was signed by rabbis and Jewish lay leaders convinced that the Gingrich "contract" reflected the "eternal values of Judaism.”  The other advertisement, in refutation, maintained that the "core political commitment of Judaism" is the covenant to liberalism. Each claimed its own synonymy with authentic...Read more...

A Reenactment, November 10, 2000

by Harold M. Schulweis

I read, posthumously, books on the philosophy of Judaism which credits me as one of the most influential Jewish theologians in contemporary Jewish life. That, in itself, is a wonder. It is a wonder that I am here in the synagogue -- any synagogue. For my story is a story of a Jew who was one small step away from the Christian baptismal font. I was born significantly on...Read more...

They say - we were not born together
we come from different families, different schools, different associations.
You are not me 
and I am not you

Yet -
You know me better than I know myself.
You complete my sentences, fill in the pauses
read between the lines

You are not me - and I am not you.
Yet when we are not together
my sight, my...Read more...

"The whole world was created for the sake of union."
To unite the divided,
To bring together the separate.
A mysterious mathematics:
Two into one
One into two.

A self-discovery.
With another to learn my interior self.
Not in solitary revelation
With the other to whom I can say thou,
With all my soul, mind and might,
I am newly...Read more...

The mirror is not neutral
A cool, silver-covered surface
reflecting me impartially.
It has its own shape,
its own concave, convex bent.
No two mirrors are alike.

Some mirrors make me look
hard and gross.
However I fix my smile, it reflects
a grimace.
However wide I set my eyes,
it appears a squinting mean-ness.

Other mirrors see me...Read more...

It is over now, and I have done well.
chanted well, my voice was firm,
my speech lucid.

It is over now.
The gifts opened, the band, the music
that congratulate

It is the next day.
Is this a new stage
on a journey of self-discovery,
or will this beginning speedily halt?

Will I choose to live what I...Read more...

Not "Who am I"
but "Whose am I".
In belonging lies the secret identity.

Who belongs to me,
To whom do I belong?
Who accepts me
Whom do I accept?
Who has claims upon me
Upon whom do I lay claim?

Who knows my failings?
Who knows the meanings
of my angers and ambitions, my fears,
My cries for love sometimes hidden past...Read more...

There are matters not subject to the senses
taste, sound, smell, sight, touch
Matters elusive to definition
yet known without doubt.
Known to make us cry and laugh
to move us to unimagined heights
to courage and self-sacrifice.

Experiences -- like love or God
Cannot be fingered, placed or poked.
Of such things
it is wiser to ask
not where...Read more...

From where did you arrive?
out of the womb of Eve and the seed of Adam.

Angels show the unborn soul
the secrets of heaven and of earth
The soul pleads with God not to push him from
the comfort of the womb.

"I am well pleased with the world
in which I have been living since the day You called me to be.
Why do you desire me to enter this impure...Read more...

Menachem Mendel of Kotzk said
"Whoever believes in miracles is a fool;
and whoever does not believe in miracles is an atheist".
We are neither fools nor apostates

Three times daily in the midst of the Amidah prayer
we acknowledge
Rock and Shield that saves in every generation
our souls that are given in God's tender care
Three times...Read more...

The infant comes
into this world with a former wisdom,
having been shown the mysteries of the universe.
A the moment of birth, an angel struck the baby
on the upper lip, left an unexplained indented mark.
With that blow, the child forgets all it has learned
in another world.

That forgetfulness is a blessing,
not the answer,
but the quest for...Read more...

Even on the Sabbath,
Even during festival or fast,
The covenant brith takes place on the eighth day.
What is the Sabbath or Yom Tov or Yom Kippur
But a reminder of the constancy
That entwines our life with God's.

On the eighth day our child is covenanted,
Having lived through the Sabbath,
No stranger to creation,
No passive particle
Thrown into the world.
Our child is partner,
Co-worker,...Read more...

Yom Kippur, 2000 by Harold M. Schulweis

When I put down the slender book Tuesdays With Morrie, I felt a double sadness. First, for the death of a courageous and good man whose life was ravaged by ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease. And I was saddened because I sensed that Judaism and the synagogue had lost Morrie and Morrie's children. Morrie was so unmistakably Jewish, and yet so far removed from Judaism; so close and yet so far.

I...Read more...

Passover Yizkor by Harold M. Schulweis

I have Kosovo on my mind.

It intruded on my Passover Sedarim. Kosovo was a shock of recognition. Box cars, sealed trains, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of old men, women, children, frightened, wet, cold, hungry, sick, bewildered. And the reporter's consistent questions at the borders of Macedonia and Albania, "Where are the men between the ages of 17 and 45?" Where did we hear...Read more...

A discussion in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 98a) deals with the signs of the coming of the Messiah.

"When will the Messiah come?"
"Go and ask him yourself."
"Where can I find him?"
"At the gates of Rome."
"By what signs will I recognize him?"
"He is sitting among the poor and the suffering sick."

While others untie the bandages that require dressing all at once and then re-bandage them together, the Messiah...Read more...

by Harold M. Schulweis

There are Talmudic debates about the correct number of sounds to be blown from the shofar, the shape of the shofar, whether curved or straight, and whether the shofar should be made of a ram's horn or of an antelope's horn. But in the village of Chelm, the debate was about the proper side through which the shofar should be blown, whether from the narrow side or from the wide side. This...Read more...

I have learned from the Clinton affair how unprepared our technologically sophisticated society is to deal with moral issues, and specifically, how to transmit moral wisdom to our children. Parents ask, "What are we to say to our children about the conduct of the most powerful leader of our country and the world?" I suggest they sit down with their child before an open Bible and ask, "What are we to say about David, the king and psalmist, who...Read more...

Selichot, 1997 by Harold M. Schulweis

Throughout the High Holy Days, both on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there is a prayer which concludes, "Repentance, prayer and tzedakah may avert the evil decree.” So important is tzedakah that the Talmud (Yurasalmi Peah) tells us that tzedakah is the equal of all of the commandments of the Torah combined.

I haven't translated tzedakah because there are some ideas that cannot be...Read more...

There is chutzpah in attending to the Achilles heel of faith that has led so many to hubble and desperately reach out for crutches. Who are we to deal with one of the perennial problems of theology when so many before us have stumbled?

I do not regard this effort as audacity, but as part of the tradition that recognizes the sanctity of the question. We cannot bury the difficult questions, for fear that dealing with them will weaken...Read more...

by Harold M. Schulweis

This is less an address than a rabbinic confession. Confession is good for the soul, if not always for the reputation. But before whom better to confess than before one's colleagues?

Late one night, after Yom Kippur I received a frantic telephone call. As soon as I arrived at the home, which was already filled with family and friends, I was told the tragic tale. I had...Read more...

Rosh Hashana 2002

by Harold M. Schulweis

In my parents' home, the first course of the Rosh Hashanah meal was fish. Why fish? Because fish allegedly had special virtues. When the biblical flood took place, all the creatures of the earth were destroyed except the fish. Water was their natural habitat. That was their virtue, their capacity to survive. 

But others said the fish symbolize ignorance. As Santayana once...Read more...

Rabbinical Assembly Convention Address, January 1979

by Harold M. Schulweis

"I know that I am perplexed, that my fears are irrational, incoherent. At times I am given over to panic; I am afraid of death. At other times, I am horrified by the thought of becoming, God forbid, incapacitated during my life-time. . . I don't know what to fear, what not to fear; I am utterly confused and ignorant." ["Redemption, Prayer, Talmud...Read more...